Samantha's childhood playmate, the wealthy, handsome and amiable Tony Brownfield, has begun dating Sam since her return to Barbados from boarding-school in England. Her racially obsessed father, her mother and her sister, all assume Sam will marry this very eligible white bachelor, the cream of society. But Sam has lost her heart to a bold young black farmer, Albert Wetherby, from the nearby village. The family butler cautions Sam against Albert, and against her clandestine meeting with her lover on the beach. But Sam's unlikely confidant, the gay antique dealer Roy, for whom she works, encourages her to follow her heart. And so when she inherits money from an aunt, Sam elopes with Albert on a boat back to England, far away from the small-minded, class-conscious community of Barbados.